Command line requires X11

[franky47]

I'd like to use the CLI in Arduino 1.5 on a headless Raspberry Pi (accessed through SSH only, no X11 environment), to make a continuous integration platform.

When calling arduino in the command line, Java complains that the X11 environment is not set and is required (which should not be necessary for CLI programs).

CLI output:

$ arduino --verify foo.ino
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
    at processing.app.Base.main(Base.java:113)
Caused by: java.awt.HeadlessException: 
No X11 DISPLAY variable was set, but this program performed an operation which requires it.
    at sun.awt.HeadlessToolkit.getMenuShortcutKeyMask(HeadlessToolkit.java:231)
    at processing.core.PApplet.<clinit>(Unknown Source)
    ... 1 more
zsh: exit 1     arduino --verify foo.ino

[matthijskooijman]

This seems related to #1970, but it's probably a separate problem. I'll put this on my list to investigate, thanks for reporting.

@matthijskooijman

[matthijskooijman]

Thinking about this a bit more, I think this will not be easy to fix. Right now, when running the CLI commands, all of the normal initialization happens normally,except for creating and showing the window. To fix this, we'd need to refactor the GUI code to be less coupled with the compilation functionality, which won't be very easy. We should do this eventually anyway, but this will probably require a significant effort.

[nkiest]

I'd like to comment that I have the same issue, and would love to be able to run the compile and upload commands via SSH (without X11).

[AleChelli]

Hi matthijskoijman same issue on a Debian Virtual Machine without GUI, I have try using arduino-mk, but doesn't work anyway...

[kashfshah]

Same issue with 1.5.8 on Debian Wheezy (Raspbian) running in a Raspberry Pi.

[raquelalegre]

Same issue - trying to do Continuous Integration on a Jenkins OS X node to verify Arduino files, but it needs to be headless. I've tried ino but it seems quite outdated. Is there any other workaround in the meanwhile? I've heard of bii hive, I'll give it a try too, but any other recommendations welcome.

Cheers,
Raquel